Search engine optimisation (SEO) can seem like a minefield for those getting started in the industry. Many terms don’t seem to make sense unless you have multiple degrees and a dictionary’s worth of jargon to sort through before you can begin learning anything.
This week, we’re going to clear up some of the mystery and go through the basic building blocks of an excellent SEO strategy.
Where To Start?
To understand what SEO requires, it’s vital to know what your brand is about and who it is for. For example, have you identified your niche? Can you narrow it down even further? Do you know who your primary target audience is?
Once you’ve answered these questions, go further, and identify any seasonal trends in your industry, determine whether your customers are searching on computers or mobiles, and learn why they might be searching for your products.
When you have these basic building blocks, you can begin to optimise your web pages with SEO-rich content so that customers can find you quickly, enabling you to reach a wider audience.
Keywords
Keywords will always be an essential part of your SEO strategy. They relate to your business or products and help customers find your website when they type a keyword or search phrase into Google. When considering what keywords to focus on, it is vital to take several factors, such as the following, into account:
- Volume – A keywords volume determines how often it is searched for. Essentially, the higher the search volume, the more work required to rank for them. Established companies will usually rank for high volume keywords effortlessly, so don’t be discouraged if you can’t rank for them as easily.
- Length – Long-tail keywords (longer keywords) are usually easier to rank for than short-tail, high-volume keywords. Although fewer people search for them, conversion rates are often better, especially as those using them are usually ready to complete an action, such as purchasing.
- Competitors – The great thing about SEO is that you can use tools to determine which keywords your competitors employ. You can then compete with them for the keywords directly or target the keywords they have missed and rank for those instead.
- Geography – Your customers may use different search terms depending on what region or country they’re in. To target them, you can personalise your keywords so that those searching in various regions can find you easily.
Link Building
Another key SEO tool is the practice of link building. Link building is the process of linking out to other websites and having other websites link to yours to build your site’s authority.
Links are one of the three major ranking factors of Google and work almost as votes from other websites that show that your website is trustworthy. You can increase the number of links on your page via several strategies:
- Add – Although it may sound cheeky, you can manually add links from other websites to your own. This can be via business directory websites, commenting on other blogs with a link to your site, posting to forums, and creating profiles on social media that direct followers to your web pages. However, these have a lower value, so don’t rely on them alone for results.
- Ask – Reach out to other websites or businesses and ask if they would be willing to add a link to your website. You can send a link of your own to fix a broken link, show them that your page is far better than one they are already using, or ask them to link a mention of your brand if they have one.
- Earn – You can earn links by creating various pieces of content that people will want to link on their websites. For instance, you may create linkbait, such as a data study or infographic, inspiring other websites to share and generate additional links for your brand. You can also invest in in-depth blog content that people will link to due to the expertise and authority conveyed.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is about much more than keywords. Although they play a significant role, keywords are not the only elements that help determine your website rankings. Many other factors will help your pages rank better, such as:
- Including clear bullet-point lists and short paragraphs for skim readers – Bullet points stand out from the crowd and break up a solid wall of text. Using them in your website copy will encourage more people to engage.
- Ensuring that your primary keyword is included in your blog or page title – This tells Google that your page is relevant to the specific topic.
- Using short URLs when uploading blogs or creating web pages – Doing so makes the topic clear to potential customers.
- Optimising your page title – This guarantees that your blog or website doesn’t vanish from search engine page results (SERP) when people are searching for your chosen keyword. It also increases website clicks and conversions, as those searching for specific keywords will know what to expect from your website.
- Writing a good meta description – A good meta description is custom-wrote for the web page and concisely describes what it includes. If you don’t provide one, Google will pick one out instead, which may prevent it from being perfectly optimised for your page.
- Optimising your images – Change your image names to your chosen keywords to describe them. For instance, if you have a picture of a glass of juice on your landing page, you could name it juice-glass. Images can help push your ranking up and generate more traffic.
- Adding internal and external links – Links add value for your users and show that you have put a lot of work and effort into your content. Find links to high authority websites such as news outlets or academic journals, but always make sure they are relevant.
Conclusion
There is much more to SEO than these three topics for beginners. However, this is the best place to get started. If your content is good and your research is relevant, you’ll work towards increasing your rankings and finding your customers via organic search results. You can also use other techniques to boost your brand visibility, such as paid ads and search analytics.
